There are many applications in which it may be desired to deploy a housing containing a sonar transducer or an instrumentation package into the ocean at the end of a line which may be 1,000 feet long or more. Such instrumentation packages may be expendable and therefore need to be quite inexpensive and would not justify sophisticated hydrodynamic design. One known method for assuring reasonable stability for objects dropped into the ocean is to place the center of gravity substantially below the center of buoyancy. This arrangement is not always practical.
Applicant has been concerned with a problem of assuring verticality in the deployment of an electroacoustical transducer package deployed from an aircraft where it is carried in a bomb bay or other location permitting very little increase in diameter beyond that required for the package itself. When placed in the ocean, it is desired that the transducer drop vertically and not drift off at an angle since it is important to know that the physical location of the transducer is essentially directly below that of a buoy visible in the water. Since this transducer package is essentially cheap and expendable, it does not warrant a sophisticated hydrodynamic design to assure such verticality. The housing is essentially cylindrical in configuration, and it will be recognized that any irregularities in the surface of such cylinder, particularly where the center of gravity is not below the center of buoyancy, can cause the cylindrical housing to drift laterally.